Science, Spirituality and Wellness – Existence, Emotions and Ethics

[Seminar at Maylands Community Center, Perth, Australia]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today. Is this on? I don’t think so.
Hare Krishna. Yeah, now it is on. Thank you.
So thank you for coming today afternoon. And as I mentioned I’ll speak on the topic of science, spirituality and wellness. I’ll speak this in three parts.
First, I’ll speak about my own journey briefly. in this direction. Then I’ll speak about what wellness is and what all is required for that.
And then lastly talk about what science contributes to that and what spirituality contributes to it. So I was 20-25 years ago, I was an engineering student in a prominent college in India. And science was my fascination from childhood.
One of my hobbies was to have a telescope and observe the skies. And I read biographies of scientists. I was thrilled by the spirit of research and discovery.
And I had a notion that science and the search for truth would give me so much excitement and so much fulfilment that that would be the purpose of my life. However, as I was studying in my college, I met different people. I met a person who was a double PhD in astrophysics.
Doing research at a very prominent institute in India and space research. And I found that he was brilliant in his field but somehow he happened to be a chain smoker. At that time you could say it’s just a personal preference.
Whatever one wants to live, whichever way one wants to live, what one wants to do. But for me it created a cognitive dissonance. It created a confusion because I was thinking that scientific research itself should be so exciting and fulfilling.
And space research is considered to be the most exciting. So I was puzzled by that. And in my college I was studying electronics and telecommunications engineering.
One day I went to college and we were told that there is no college today. I said, why, what happened? One of the most prominent professors in our college had committed suicide. He had written books on his subject and he was quite an intelligent person.
But he had committed suicide. So that time I started thinking, I had heard his classes, he was one of my professors. He is brilliant.
So what went wrong? So that was the time I started exploring that there has to be something which is missing. These people are among the pioneers, at least in my area of experience, in the field of science. And yet there seems to be something missing in their lives.
So that was the time when I started exploring spirituality. And actually before that I was also involved in some social service organisations. I used to go to schools, to slums and offer free tuitions to the children over there.
So when I used to go to their homes, I often found that most of these kids, their homes were dysfunctional. Most of the fathers were alcoholics and there was domestic violence in their homes. So that time I started thinking, am I really helping people, these kids? How much help is there if I teach them English, mathematics, history, when their lives are a mess.
So that time our social organisation decided to go into anti-alcohol campaign to help people become free from alcohol. And one of my friends adopted a small village and he succeeded in making the whole village free from alcohol. We consider that a big success of our life, of our mission.
But then one day my friend came back, I used to go to the slums nearby, he used to go to the village. He came back from the village and he looked shattered. I asked him, what happened? He said, recently there have been local panchayat elections, local governmental elections.
And in those elections, one of the political candidates, in order to get elected, had brought three truckloads of free liquor for all the villagers. And not only the fathers, but even their kids had gone drunk. So that time I felt that there is something within us which prevents us from creating a better life for ourselves.
Which obstructs us. So what is that? At one level I could have attributed it to lack of education. But then I saw that even people who are well educated, there is something which is sabotaging them also.
So that was the time when I started exploring Bhagavad Gita. A friend gave me a copy of the Gita and I started reading it. And in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, 36th verse, I came across a verse which spoke to me like few other things in life have spoken.
This 3.36 states, What is it that impels us to wrongful actions? What is it that impels us to self-destructive actions? So therein the Bhagavad Gita gave an answer which helped me to make sense of what I was observing. Then as I started studying the Bhagavad Gita more and more, I also, before I adopted spirituality, because my interest was science, I scientifically studied spirituality. Does it actually make sense? And what can it contribute? If I study the Bhagavad Gita, if I adopt the Bhagavad Gita, is it that I am becoming unscientific? So that was the time when, So the Bhagavad Gita, so I was critiquing spirituality from a scientific perspective.
Does it really make sense? So over the years, I have been doing this, studying science, spirituality. And as I went into the history of science, it struck me that science is a very powerful way of acquiring knowledge. At the same time, it has a particular focus.
So at the dawn of science, many of the pioneers of science, Galileo and later on Francis Bacon and others, who not just made discoveries but laid the foundations of how science should research. They divided reality, the world around us, into what they call as the primary properties and the secondary properties. So, primary properties are those which are measurable.
The world outside is a very very complicated place. Even if you look at one leaf, we can do a series of doctoral theses on the structure of leaves. So when we have to study the world, we have to have some means of focussing on what we are going to take in, what are we going to observe and analyse.
So the primary properties were deemed as those which we can measure. So mathematics was considered as vital for getting reliable knowledge. And when the parameters which we are observing and analysing could be mathematically measured, they were considered as primary parameters.
So length, breadth, height, velocity, mass, density, these were considered as primary properties. And secondary properties were everything else. And science, while studying the primary properties and trying to find out principles, laws, which govern the interaction of these primary properties, came up with phenomenal insights that have transformed the world around us, primarily through technology.
At the same time, when focus goes on one thing, focus goes off other things. If we consider the world we experience, the world we experience is not primarily the world of mathematics. If, say you meet some person, and then you go and meet someone and you go and tell your family members, your friends, I met a very interesting person today.
Okay, so tell me something about the person. Okay, so he is 5 feet tall. Okay, if somebody is very short, somebody is very tall, that would be of interest.
But how many of us are interested just in the height of a person? Now, if you went to a programme and there is very good food there. I had a great feast today. How was the food? Well, it weighed about 200 grammes.
What? How many of us are interested in how much food weighs? Maybe if we are going to carry food and we have limited baggage when we are going by plane, then we might consider the weight of the food. But normally when we interact with people, we, or not just interact with people, whenever we have any experiences in life, we are concerned not so much with the mathematical measurable parameters. Albert Einstein is attributed to have said that all that counts is not countable.
And all that is countable doesn’t count. So, through science success in looking at the measurable parameters, the result was that the measurable parameters of the world, they started becoming more and more important. And on the other hand, that which is non-measurable, that started being relegated into the background.
Now, what is it that is not measurable? I’ll talk about this in three primary things. E.E.E. Existence, Emotions and Ethics. Existence means what? Actually, sometimes when we talk about spirituality, when we talk about some soul, God or any such spiritual concepts, we’ll say what is the scientific proof that such a thing exists? That’s a reasonable question.
But if we really go into scientific proof, there is no scientific proof that you exist. What do I mean? There is no scientific proof that you exist. There is no scientific experiment anyone can do by which you can conclude that you exist.
Because you as a person who is experiencing emotions, taking decisions, you as a person are not mathematically measurable. Your body is measurable. Your brain size is measurable.
Your blood pressure is measurable. But these are not you. You are something more.
There is no proof that you exist. There is no scientific proof that you exist. But rather, scientific proof exists because you exist.
Because if we as observers were not existing, scientific proof would not be possible. Who would prove it? Who would be observing? So, fundamentally speaking, with respect to science, our own very existence is something which cannot be mathematically quantified. What do I mean again by mathematically quantified? It simply means that our existence is not a mathematically measurable object.
We can measure our, as I said, our white blood cells, red blood cells, everything we can measure like that. But we as a person is none of these. To give an example, to illustrate this further, suppose you have a child and the child is sick.
Many of you are doctors also. But suppose you go to a doctor, take the child to a doctor. The doctor orders an exhaustive medical test.
Now the doctor may know the physical parameters of the child thoroughly. In fact, the doctor may know the physical parameters of the child much better than what the mother knows. But who knows the child? Who knows the child better? It is the mother who knows the child better, isn’t it? So now, our physical parameters are important.
If you want to know about our health, you want to find some diagnosis and take some prescription. But the physical parameters are not the person. The person is an individual with emotions, with a personality.
And these can’t be mathematically measured. Einstein again pointed out the limitation of science in this regard. When he said that science can explain the falling of objects.
But it can’t explain people’s falling in love. You cannot have a scientific explanation. Why? Why a particular person is attracted to another person? Why a particular person is not attracted to another person? We may have some nascent scientific theories, but we can’t predict no matter what.
If anything is truly a scientific theory, then it should be able to predict. If we have Newton’s theory of gravity, if I take this phone and I drop it, obviously I won’t drop it. But if I drop it, we can predict from this height how long will it take to fall down.
But with respect to human behaviour, we can’t predict anything like that. So our very existence is the basis on which science is experienced, science is discovered. But our existence is not something which can be scientifically quantified.
So an example to illustrate this, that suppose you decide to drive cross country from Perth to Melbourne and you are going there to meet a friend and you have got a map with you. You consult the map and the map says turn left, turn right, go across this bridge, go across this river, you will come to this mountain range, go across it and everything that is predicted in the map turns out to be right. And then eventually you get to your destination.
And when you get there, you knock on the door. Your friend opens the door and says, welcome. If someone looks at the map, he says, I don’t find you in this map, therefore you don’t exist.
Friend would say, your brain doesn’t exist. Obviously, I am not to be found in the map. The map is very useful.
The map may even be indispensable for travelling. But the map does not depict people. The map depicts, there is a particular model of reality that is given in the map.
And that model is very helpful for us to navigate while travelling. But it doesn’t show everything. So science is like a map of reality.
And science gives us enormous understanding of the physical mechanisms by which certain things operate in the world. But there are many things beyond it, whose existence we consider foundational. That is our own very existence.
Just because we can’t quantify ourselves, who is going to say that we don’t exist? Obviously we exist. So existence is the first thing. Now how does this matter? Our topic is science, spirituality and wellness.
I will come to that. How does it matter whether there is existence, whether what science cannot tell us, how does it matter for our wellness? That brings me to the second point, that is emotions. Emotions are what we experience in the course of our life.
That’s what we look forward to. We want to have fulfilling relationships with others. When we achieve something in life, when we buy something in life, we want to experience some emotions.
So now again, emotions are not measurable. I gave a series of seminars in America in Ohio University on overcoming fear. At that time, I was studying what are the prominent fears of people and how those fears have changed over the centuries.
What are the prominent fears in 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century? So in 21st century, two prominent fears have been added. One is the fear of terrorists. And the second is the fear of rejection.
When people form a relationship with someone, as social structures are collapsing, more and more people have to themselves be in the market to find an appropriate partner. And then when they are presenting themselves to form a relationship, there is always the fear, what if the other person rejects me? So this fear of rejection, it creates so much anxiety and stress for people. Now, when two people want to form a relationship, both would like to know, does the other person really care for me? Do you really love me? We want to know that.
With all our scientific advancement, can we measure a love-o-metre? Can we make a love-o-metre? When you want to form a relationship, put that on the other person’s heart. Do you really love me? And you get ready. Because love is not again quantifiable.
It’s an emotion that doesn’t, it is foundational to our experience of life. We all want to love and be loved. But it is not quantifiable.
Most medical science, one of its purpose is to help us become free from pain, to be healthy, to become free from pain. Now, again, can we measure pain? Mathematically. We may have some inference which we can do on a scale.
Okay, this person must be in a lot of pain. But, actually, we can’t quantify pain. That’s why when some surgery is done, or some person has taken some dental treatment, or something like that, at that time, doctors give painkiller, and they tell, depending on, sometimes a specific dosage is given, but sometimes it is said, depending on how much pain you feel, you take the painkiller.
So, it will vary from person to person. So, again, pain is not quantifiable. But love is a very strong and real emotion that we long to experience.
And pain is also a sensation, an emotion that we don’t want to experience. Both of them are very real for us, but neither of them can be scientifically quantified. And our wellness depends not so much on the things that we have, not so much on the state of our finances, that’s important, but our wellness depends much more on the state of our emotions.
We may be living in a fabulous bungalow, but if we are having a bitter relationship, conflict with a loved one, our emotions will be wild, and we will not experience any happiness. So, emotions are real for us. With all our scientific advancement, we can’t actually mathematically quantify emotions, nor can we substantially change emotions.
We may, if we feel depressed, we may take some antidepressants. But that offers just a temporary relief. It’s like a painkiller.
It’s not actually a medicine. When certain chemicals are secreted in the brain, researchers have observed that that is associated with certain feelings. So, then researchers try to externally secrete those chemicals in the brain.
And hopefully, that will lead to the feeling of people feeling good. But it doesn’t work like that. We may feel good temporarily, but it is we who are experiencing the emotions.
Suppose if you go to some friend’s house or relative’s house and they have some small child, and you want to have some little fun with that child. You may tickle the child. Now, you tickle the belly of the child, and the child will start laughing.
Now, if the child starts laughing, is that laughter happiness? Is the laughter triggered by tickling happiness? What do you think? Yes or no? No. We could say it is, yeah, laughter normally associated with happiness. But if the laughter produced by, if the sensation produced by tickling, that laughter we call as happiness, we all want to be happy.
So, all of us could have our own perpetual tickling machine. Whenever we want to be happy, we tickle ourselves. That would be happiness.
So, just as laughter is the result of happiness, laughter itself is not happiness. In fact, there is a prominent academy award winning comedian, who about a couple of years ago, committed suicide. Williams.
And then, when he committed suicide, it is there in one of my books. After the laughter. When they are on the screen, they are laughing.
But even comedians, we think they must be very happy, because they are making all of us laugh. But then, they themselves end up committing suicide. So, laughter is the result of happiness.
Laughter itself is not happiness. Same way, through scientific research, we might increase, say, the serotonin in the brain, or some other chemicals in the brain, which are associated with happiness, which are associated with the removal of depression. But, that itself is not happiness.
Those chemicals come in, it’s like artificially making a person laugh. They may laugh for some time, but that is not happiness. Similarly, we may get really stimulated, but we don’t even know what happiness is, what to speak of, quantifying or creating happiness through any scientific means.
All this is not meant to criticise science. It is to contextualise science. Every tool has its power.
It also has its limitations. And, we are talking about wellness. So, the biggest challenge in the world today is that, more and more people are facing mental health problems.
Mental health problems have been declared by the World Health Organisation to be the biggest health challenge of the current century. And, it’s paradoxical that, actually, we have advanced so much technologically, so we should be all more comfortable. And, if comforts alone lead to happiness, then we should be happier.
But, we are comfortable, unfortunately, we are comfortably miserable. Our bodies are comfortable, but our minds are miserable. And, the last thing, so, emotions are something which science can’t address.
And, the last thing, E, we talk about existence, emotions and ethics. Ethics means, what is right, what is wrong. Science is not moral, science is not immoral.
It is technically called amoral. Amoral means, it does not take any moral stand on issues. It just, if you do this, this will happen.
Whether you should do this or not, that is something up to the individual. There is a young boy, whose grandmother is old, and her grandmother has left her inheritance for him. By studying a science textbook, that boy can come to know, that if I put arsenic in my grandmother’s breakfast, I can get to my inheritance quickly.
Now, whether I should do this or not, science will not tell that. Albert Einstein said that, we can talk about the ethical foundations of science, but we can’t talk about the scientific foundation of ethics. Now, why do ethics matter for us? Ethics is not just acting according to some code, which somebody has set up.
Ethics refers to choices, that actually contribute to our happiness, our wellness and others’ wellness. So, with Einstein and Planck had a conversation, where Planck told Einstein, this is quoted by, this is quoted by, who is the former president of India, who is a scientist? Abdul Kalam. So, Abdul Kalam has quoted this in his, thank you, Abdul Kalam has quoted this in his book, Ignited Minds.
He quoted this conversation. He says that, the problem with our western civilisation is that we have got a magnificent ship. It has got tremendous comforts and luxuries within it.
But, it has no compass, and it doesn’t know where it is going. So, what does it mean, no compass, and we don’t know where it is going? What is life ultimately meant for? On what basis are we meant to make choices? What is it that will truly bring us wellness, bring us happiness? These are questions, which science itself does not have any answers. The Bhagavad Gita provides us some interesting answers.
It explains that our current existence is three level, body, mind and soul. Science studies primarily the body, that is the physical matter, physical level, mental level and spiritual level. This is like a computer, hardware, software and user.
The hardware is like the body, the software is the mind, and the user is the soul, the consciousness. So, our wellness, we as souls are spiritual, and the soul’s consciousness is like the energy, the light comes from the soul. So, for example, this tube light is there, from the tube light, light is coming down.
So, like that, the soul radiates out consciousness. The soul’s consciousness comes out, through the mind, to the body, to the outer world. And as the soul’s consciousness comes out like this, we experience life based on the things, that are out there in the physical world, but we also experience life based on the thoughts, the emotions that are there in our inner world, in the mind.
So, through science, we are working more and more, to create better and better things in the outer world. But what about the thoughts in the inner world? Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more disorganised. To illustrate this three level model of the self, body, mind and soul, let’s do a simple thought experiment.
So, wherever you are, you can sit comfortably in a relaxed position, and you can close your eyes. And now with your eyes closed, you can take three deep breaths. One.
As you take a breath in, let all the fresh air from outside come in. And as you release the breath, let all the tiredness, the lethargy, let all the negativity go out. Please take a deep breath.
One more. Now, with your eyes closed, look at, think of your body, and think of whichever part of your body is most tense. Maybe your back is tense because of sitting in one place.
Maybe your legs are tense. Maybe there is some tension in your fists. In your arms.
Notice whichever part of your body is tense and just let it relax. As your body relaxes, now with your eyes closed, look in front of you and notice what you see. Because your eyes are closed, you can’t see what is physically in front of you.
At the same time, there is something like a screen inside you on which you may see this room, you may see your home, or your car, or your phone, or your loved one. Or you may see a stream of images coming and going on that inner screen. Or you may just see some dull haze of colours there on the screen.
But whatever it is that you see, you see it on some kind of screen inside you. While you are observing the screen, try to take a step back and look at who is it that is looking at the screen. I repeat, while looking at the inner screen, take a step back and catch sight of the inner seer who is looking at that inner screen.
Try once again, take a step back. And who is it that is seeing? Take one deep breath. Now, no matter how many steps you take back, that seer steps back with you.
What you are looking for is what you are looking with. You are that seer. You are the soul, the inner seer.
And the inner screen on which you see various things, that is your mind. You can take one deep breath and then slowly open your eyes. Thank you.
So now, when you are looking at me, I am a part of the outer scene. So when we experience something, these three have to come in one line. The outer scene, the inner screen and the inner seer.
So when you look at something, then sometimes when you are talking with someone suddenly we notice that their eyes have become glazed. And we say, earth to you, earth to you. Don’t go to some other planet, come back here.
So what has happened? Physically they are there, but their mind has gone somewhere else. So when the mind goes somewhere else, they don’t hear what you are saying. They don’t even see what we are doing.
So basically for us to experience anything, these three things, the outer scene, the inner screen and the inner seer have to be in one line. With science, we have got a lot of understanding of the outer scene. And through technology, we have tried to make the outer scene better, more comfortable, more good looking.
And improving the outer scene is important. But at the same time, the inner scene, sorry, the inner screen affects us much more. The inner screen is meant to act like a window, where whatever is outside is seen inside.
However, the inner screen can at any moment become like a TV. And suddenly as a TV, it starts showing something else. I was in California at a friend’s house.
And while I was sitting there, in a big house he had, and behind the house there was beautiful greenery. So we were sitting and talking, looking at the greenery. And suddenly as we were looking at the serene, scenic greenery, suddenly I saw a huge gorilla charging towards that window.
Huge gorilla, maybe the kind you see in Planet of the Apes. And that gorilla was charging and about to smash the glass of the window. I became a little alarmed and looked at him.
And he was, my friend was grinning. And I looked at him, and he had something in his hands. I looked down, inside was a remote.
And he pressed the remote, and the gorilla disappeared. I said, what did you do? So he said he had designed that window in such a way that window could double as a TV screen. So when you press a button, the window changes into a TV screen.
And just to amuse visitors, he had made a movie clipping of a gorilla, a digitally created gorilla, in the same background as was there behind him. You can see through the window. So, now if somebody doesn’t know that this window can double as a TV screen, a person will get alarmed.
What happened? So, actually our mind is like that dual function screen. It is meant to function as a window, but sometimes it can suddenly start functioning as a TV. Say right now, you are hearing this talk, and suddenly, where did I put the key of my car? Is it in my pocket? Oh, I don’t see it in my pocket.
Is it my purse? Is it my wallet? Did I leave it in the car? Oh, has somebody stolen the car? If somebody steals my car, what will happen? That one thought comes in, where is the key of my car? And immediately, on the inner screen, a movie may start. And we will get distracted. So, this, what appears on the inner screen, affects us hugely.
Today, there are two major mental health problems that people have. One is depression, and the other is anxiety. In terms of this inner screen model, we can say that these two problems are caused by the inner screen functioning as a TV instead of a window.
When the inner screen starts showing a horror movie of all the bad things that have happened to us in our life. Oh, this person did like this. Oh, this went wrong.
Oh, I made a mess of that. When we start thinking of all the bad things that have happened to us, then, we start thinking, oh, so many bad things have happened, in the future, same will happen to me again. And thus, we become depressed.
So, depression results when the mind goes into the past, and starts replaying all the bad things that have happened to us. Conversely, if the mind goes into the future, and starts replaying all the bad things that have happened in the future, or that may happen in the future, that causes anxiety. Anxiety, worry, tension, whatever the specific word we use for it, it’s all caused by our mind going to the future, and just wildly displaying various worst case scenarios of the future.
Worry is like a tax that we pay on loans that we haven’t yet taken. It’s a problem that is not yet materialised, but still we are expending energy and emotion on it. So, if we could get our inner screen to function properly, then, that will lead to our wellness much, much more than just getting better things in the outer sea.
And this is where spirituality comes into the picture. Science may be able to improve the outer sea, but science can’t improve the inner screen. Science can’t even tell us what the inner screen is, or what the inner seer is.
Spirituality tells us that we, the inner seer of the soul, and the inner screen is our mind. And, if we can discipline the inner screen, that will lead to well-being for us. प्रशान्तवनसम् येनम् योगिनम् सुखमुद्धमम् उपईतिशान्तरजसम् ब्रह्मभूतमकल्मशम् In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that when one practises yoga, when one, especially the Bhagavad Gita recommends Bhakti Yoga as a process for spiritual connection, when we become spiritually situated, then the mind becomes calm.
This inner screen which is restless, showing this, showing that, thinking about this, thinking about that, worrying about this, dreading that, craving for that, that becomes calm. योगिनम् सुखमुद्धमम् We start experiencing a sublime peace. उपईतिशान्तरजसम् All the agitating forces which are there within the mind, they get removed, they get pacified.
This is the result of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth means understanding our own spiritual identity and understanding our connection with the supreme spiritual reality. The Bhagavad Gita describes that we are souls and we are part of a whole.
That whole is known by different names and different traditions. The Bhagavad Gita knows that whole, that absolute, that ultimate reality by the name Krishna. When the soul connects with the whole in a mood of loving contribution, then that connection brings stability.
The mind, its inner screen may keep showing various things but if we are hooked to it, if we are obsessed with it, then we get distracted. But if we are distanced from it, if we are spiritually anchored, then whatever comes in our inner screen doesn’t disturb us that much. Suppose we are in a movie theatre where everything is dark and then a horror movie is going on.
Now we can’t see anything else so our consciousness gets caught in the horror movie and we will get horrified. On the other hand, say if we are at our home and say an acquaintance, a friend, a family member is watching a horror movie. Now we are doing our work at home and we just glance around.
We look at the horror movie. What is this movie going on? Just look at it for a few moments and we move on because we are not fixated on that horror movie. In a movie theatre, we will be fixated on the horror movie.
At home, we have many other things to do. So we still show something horrible but we will not be affected by it. So similarly for us, if we have no spiritual knowledge, then we are like in the movie theatre.
We are fixated on the screen. Whatever thoughts come in, we get immediately carried away by them. Whatever emotions come in, whatever that inner screen shows, we get tossed here, there and everywhere by it.
And that’s how the mental health problems start increasing more and more. Because to the extent we are obsessed with whatever is being shown, whatever thought comes in the mind, whatever idea comes in the mind, whatever emotion comes in the mind, we get caught by that. Then we just get tossed here and there.
But by spiritual knowledge, we understand, yes, this, what the screen is showing, what the mind is showing, but I am bigger. I am not my body. I am not my mind.
I am something higher. No matter what terrible things happen in the world out there, no matter what terrible thoughts come in here, we are neither those things, nor are we those thoughts. We are the observer of those things and we are the observer of those thoughts.
So to the extent we can situate ourselves in spiritual self-understanding, by giving our life a spiritual purpose, to that extent, our wellness, whatever we are cultivating, that will not be spoiled, that will not be sabotaged by our mind. Our mind won’t be able to come in the way of our growth. We are all working towards getting better things in life.
It is fine. That’s a normal human aspiration. But that alone won’t lead to happiness unless we can cultivate better thoughts.
Unless we can get better discipline over what kind of thoughts keep coming within our mind. And that discipline is what is developed by spirituality. So when we study the Bhagavad Gita, when we practise the process of Bhakti Yoga, which connects us with the supreme spiritual reality, Krishna, then that enables us to distance ourselves from externals.
That enables us to move away from whatever difficulties we might be facing. Last year when I was in America, I was in Florida at that time, a severe hurricane hit Florida. One of the worst hurricanes, Hurricane Irma.
So I was in Florida. At that time I left Florida to go to New York. One of my friends was there.
He was on a writing retreat. And because he wanted to write, he had cut himself off from the whole world. He was all alone.
He had cut himself off from the internet also and was writing. And one day he just woke up and looked out of the window and he saw water everywhere. Trees had fallen down and the roads were covered with water.
What happened? He tried to look for the net to get some news and there was no net. Net had gone down because of that. He turned on the power and suddenly the power had gone.
He tried to call but there was no connection to the phone also. He started becoming panicky. And as he was looking outside, he noticed that the water level was rising.
Rising, rising, rising. He became alarmed. The water was rising.
He couldn’t go anywhere. He was all alone. He couldn’t contact anyone.
So observing the rains were coming, the water level was rising. The rain stopped but still the water kept rising. Some dam had broken down and the water was coming.
That’s what he came to know later. And as he was becoming alarmed, he was looking around for what to do. And then suddenly he noticed there was a door.
There was actually what he had thought was a closet. But he realised it’s a door. So he opened the door.
It was another friend’s house where he was staying all alone. And he had just focused on writing so he had not worried much about the house. So he saw there was a closet and behind that there seemed to be a door.
So he moved the closet and then he pulled open the door and he saw there was a narrow fleet of stairs. And he ran up the fleet of stairs. There was an attic over there.
So he stayed in that attic. The water level rose, rose, rose. The ground level was inundated.
But because it was the first level, he was safe. And then the water level started receding. The net came back.
He called for help and he was rescued. So just as when the water level started rising, it was serendipity that he discovered that there was an attic. He didn’t even know that there was an attic.
He just discovered the door and he found the attic. So similarly for us, sometimes at the physical level or sometimes at the mental level, the water level may start rising. Negative things may start happening in our life.
Negative thoughts may start overwhelming us. So if at that time we understand that there is a higher level of reality where I exist. That I am not my, I am not the physical reality, physical things around me.
Nor am I the thoughts inside me. I am the thinker of those thoughts. I am the feeler of my feelings.
So by spiritual understanding, we can rise to that higher level of reality. So the process of spirituality or bhakti yoga offers us like the stairs. The more we practise bhakti, the more we rise upwards.
When we rise upwards, therein we experience security. We experience serenity. Therein we experience the supreme wellness.
The wellness that nothing in this world can take away. That spiritual understanding the Bhagavata says when we get that, having attained it, there is nothing more to be attained. And having experienced this, no problem will seem unbearable.
We will be able to get the strength to go through whatever difficulties we may get in our life. Because we will be situated in inner security and serenity. That is the gift that spirituality offers us.
It offers us inner perspective, inner self understanding by which the thoughts that disrupt our wellness can be distanced from, can be disciplined. And then we can be situated in spiritual happiness. So I’ll summarise.
I spoke about, I spoke today about science, spirituality and wellness. I started by my journey about how I found that people who are brilliant at science still seem not to be well. They had self-destructive habits, sometimes they committed suicide.
And even people who are uneducated, they also had similar habits. So, what was it that stops us from living a good life, from creating a better life for ourselves? Even with all the scientific and technological facilities that we have. So, I studied the Bhagavad Gita and I talked about science.
I studied science and then I discovered that there are three things which science does not tell us about. Three things? Three E’s. Existence, Emotions and Ethics.
Thank you. So, the science started by focussing on the measurable parameters. And that’s why the non-measurable parameters were left behind.
It’s like we use a map to go to a distant place and then we develop so much trust in the map that when we meet our friend, we say, you have not seen this map, so you don’t exist. So, our own existence is the basis by which everything is experienced. There is no scientific proof that we exist.
But scientific proof exists because we exist. That we as agents, we as independent agents, as experiencers or actors, we cannot be physically located in the body. We cannot be mathematically measured, but we are real.
So, a doctor, a paediatrician may know all the physical parameters of a child. But the mother knows the child. And the child is a distinct person from the physical parameters.
So, that existence is foundational. But science doesn’t talk about it. And emotions, people have so much fear of rejection in relationships.
And they want to know when they enter into a relationship, can they trust the other person? But, science with all its technology cannot make a love-o-metre. Nor can we have a pain-o-metre to measure either love or pain. Because these are real experiences, but they are not mathematically quantifiable.
All that counts is not countable. All that is countable doesn’t count, as Einstein said. Then, science may seem to address our emotions.
If I am depressed, I can take some medication. But that is simply like, if somebody is glum, we tickle them, and they laugh. That is not laughter.
That is a correlate of laughter. So, similarly, some chemicals you may secrete in the brain, and that may give us a sort of stimulus. But that’s all temporary.
If it’s temporary, there will be laughter by tickling. So, there can be physical tickling with fingers, and there can be chemical tickling with some antidepressants. But neither of them is real happiness.
And then I talked about ethics. What is right and what is wrong, that science cannot tell us. Science is not immoral, but nor is it moral.
It is amoral. It simply tells us how physical matter interacts based on laws. It doesn’t tell whether a particular thing should be done or not done.
And then lastly I talked about what the Bhagavad Gita tells us about these things. It tells us that we, our existence is three levels, body, mind and soul. The body is the hardware, and the soul is the user.
And we did the thought experiment about how we can see an inner screen, but not the inner seer. The inner screen is the mind, the inner seer is the soul. Science is focussing on improving the outer scene through technology.
Understanding and improving the outer scene. But the inner screen is going wild. And science can’t do much about it.
So when the inner screen starts showing a horror movie about the past, then we get depressed. When it starts showing a horror movie about the future, then we start getting into anxiety. So if we could learn to discipline our direct thoughts better, that would be enormously empowering.
Without that, no matter how much externals we improve, that will not lead to wellness. We may be more comfortable, but we may be comfortably miserable. So yoga is the process of spiritual connection, of expanding our view of reality, by which we connect with the supreme reality through bhakti yoga.
So if we are watching a horror movie in a theatre, our world is shrunk to the TV screen. But if we are at our home, and a horror movie is going on our TV, then we can observe, not that, but we can see other things also. So materialism shrinks our world so that we are simply gazing at the inner screen.
It’s like in a theatre watching a movie. But spirituality expands our world so that what the mind is saying, whatever thoughts are coming, they are just one part of the reality. And then I discussed about the story of this friend who discovered an attic and was saved during the flood.
So similarly for us, negativity may come at the level of outer screen, bad things may happen to us, or at the level of the inner screen, where a flood of negative thoughts may come in. But if by spiritual practise, by bhakti yoga, by studying the Bhagavad Gita, we raise our consciousness upwards to spiritual level. The process of bhakti yoga shows us the ladder shows us the staircase.
Bhakti yoga has many activities. The kirtan that we did before the class, chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra, that is the ladder where you can raise our consciousness upwards. And thus when we are spiritually situated, then we can have true wellness.
Irrespective of what happens in the outer scene, in the outer world, internally we will be secure and serene. And that is the path of wellness. Which? Spirituality of the Bhagavad Gita tells us.
Science can improve the outer screen, outer scene, but it is spirituality which will improve the inner screen and will help us realise ourselves to be the inner seers. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So are there any questions or comments? Thanks a lot, for your lecture. I know that the lecture has a magnetic pause which takes us to the question and answer session. I would like to request the three volunteers.
Volunteers will hand me the writing slips so I can read out the questions to Prabhuji and he can answer. If you have got some questions, you can… I will now read the question. Prabhuji will answer it.
We have got the first question from the member of the topic. Who are we? Why are we here? Where do we go? Why do we come back? Good question. So who are we? Why are we here? Where do we go? Why do we come back? Very fundamental existential questions.
The Bhagavad Gita explains that we are souls. We are eternal spiritual beings and we are on a journey of spiritual evolution at all times. So this journey is propelled by our desires.
The soul is eternal and the soul longs for eternal happiness. And that eternal happiness is found at the spiritual level of reality. The soul learns to love the supreme spiritual reality, Krishna, God.
Then in that loving connection that propels the soul to spiritual evolution towards the culmination. So we are longing for eternal love and eternal happiness. And that will come if we connect with the Divine in love.
However, presently we have many different desires. And based on our desires, just as physically we may go from one place to another. I want to watch a movie.
I want to go to a movie theatre. I want to see this site. Take us from one body to another body.
A soul acquires one body and then leaves that body to go into another body. Why? Because the soul has a particular conception of life. Oh, this is what I want to enjoy.
That is what I want to enjoy. So based on what the soul desires to enjoy, according to the soul it can go to different even species. If in a human body somebody wants to eat a lot of meat, then the human body is not physiologically or anatomically shaped for eating a lot of meat.
Then nature will say, that is what you want to desire. Then better get a body that is more suited for that. Somebody might get a body that is more suitable for that.
So we keep coming back because we have desires to enjoy material things. Material things are temporary. Those desires never satisfy us.
But still the desires remain. And as long as we desire to enjoy temporary material things, we keep coming back. But when we learn to love the eternal, then we attain the eternal.
Thank you Babaji. Second question. How to reflect fear of rejection? How to reject fear of success? How to reject fear of success? And rejection.
How do we deal with fear of rejection? We are all social creatures. So we do want relationships. At the same time, we have to recognise that all of us are existentially alone.
We are born alone in this world and we will leave from this world alone. In the journey we can form relationships. We should form relationships.
But the foundation has to be clear. There are three kinds of people. There are dependent people, independent people and interdependent people.
So only people who are independent can become interdependent. If we, we all define ourselves in terms of our relationships. Now we may say that as small children, okay, I am the son of so and so, I am the daughter of so and so.
When we are older we may say I am the husband of so and so, I am the wife of so and so. We define ourselves in terms of our relationships. But this is not our sole definition.
We are not just a sum total of our relationships. Or we are not just a factor in our relationships. We have horizontal relationships in this world and we have a vertical relationship with Krishna.
Krishna as God is always present with us. Sarvasya chaaham hrithisan nivishtho. He said that he is present in the hearts of everyone of us.
And he is closer to us than our closest friend or loved one can ever be. Even if they hold us in a tight hug still they can’t come as close to us as Krishna always is. And this relationship is something which is meant to be our anchor.
In the horizontal relationships there will be ups and downs. Sometimes there will be affection, sometimes there will be confrontation, sometimes there will be alienation. So these ups and downs, when they come, it’s like a person who is in an ocean.
Any wave that comes will toss us here, there and everywhere. But if there is a helicopter above and we are holding on to the helicopter, the waves will still come but the waves won’t shake us that much because we have a shelter. Similarly for us, in the world, in the relationships that we have, there will be storms.
There will be ups and downs. And if we are vertically sheltered by a strong relationship with Krishna which can be developed by the practise of Bhakti Yoga, then we understand that we always have at least one person who always cares for us. That is God.
He never leaves us no matter what happens. And in any relationship when we experience rejection, we feel unloved. To feel unloved is distressing.
But suppose we experience multiple rejections, then we start thinking maybe there is something wrong with me itself. To feel unloved is distressing. To feel unloveable is devastating.
But when we understand, when we experience our relationship with Krishna, when we practise Bhakti Yoga, when we chant the mantras about Krishna, when we do Bhakti to Krishna, we feel an inner serenity, an inner calm. And that helps us understand that God cares for me no matter what happens in my life. And that will give us a security, inner security by which if there is a rejection in our horizontal relationship, we, our sense of self-worth and identity won’t be determined by that relationship alone.
I said that we need to be independent, not dependent. If there is any particular relationship for our security or our self-worth, then any turbulence in that relationship will be very agitated. But if our security and self-worth comes from our vertical relationship with Krishna, then even if the other person goes through various ups and downs in their behaviour with us, we will have the inner stability to move forward in our life.
Okay? Thank you. One more, sorry. You already answered the question.
What is Krishna? Who made the name and… Yeah. Sorry? Who made my body or soul? Okay, okay. First, who or what is Krishna? Krishna, we often think of him as the name of a Hindu God.
Krishna, however, is a name which has a meaning. Sarvaakarshati ti Krishna. One who is all-attractive.
One in whom all attraction resides. That personality is named as Krishna. So all of us, when we look at the world around us, we may get the question, where did this come from? If we look at somebody who is attractive, somebody who is talented, attractive may be physical attraction, it may be through talents.
Where do their talents come from? So all these things, somebody who has mathematical genius, they have such abilities, they can multiply huge numbers in moments. So where do these abilities come from? Some people just have these abilities. So the source of everything can’t be nothing.
Source of everything has to be something which contains within it the properties that we find here. So that ultimate source of everything is God. One who understands that that absolute source of everything is God, is Krishna.
That person will become devoted to Krishna. So Krishna is the source of everything that we find attractive in this world. And in Him, all attraction resides in His fullness.
So we are attracted to beautiful people, Krishna is supremely beautiful. We are attracted to intelligent people, Krishna is supremely intelligent. So beauty, intelligence, wealth, strength, fame, and equanimity, detachment, all these reside in perfection in Krishna.
That’s why He is the supremely attractive person and He is the supreme object worthy of our love. He is life’s ultimate goal. So who experiences pain? The body or the soul? Actually the body is dead.
The body is made of matter. If we consider from a biological perspective, this mic biochemical perspective, it has the same atoms and molecules as has this hand. Now if I tap this mic, the mic doesn’t experience pain.
But if somebody taps my hand with a stick, I’ll experience pain. So what is it that is experiencing pain? It is not atoms and molecules. They have no consciousness.
So the experiencer is the soul. Always. However, the experience may be triggered by certain things.
Say if you have a child at your home who is watching a horror movie. Now the child may be crying, trembling, shivering, and screaming. You are sitting in that same house, you know the child is safe.
But because the child’s consciousness is caught on the TV screen where the horror movie is going on, child is experiencing all those emotions. So similarly for us, the soul is spiritual. Soul is indestructible.
The soul’s consciousness is projected onto the body-mind machine and through it to the outer world. In 13.22 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that the soul’s consciousness is projected into the material world. And because of that, the soul experiences pain.
So the pain is a result of something happening at the level of the body or at the level of the mind. The event happens at the level of the body or mind, but the experience happens at the level of the soul. So the soul experiences the pain because its consciousness is projected onto the body and the mind.
Even after understanding or hearing spiritual knowledge, why do we seek temporary pleasures? Because the temporary and the eternal are not necessarily contradictory. It’s only when we start seeking only temporary pleasure, that is the problem. We all have to eat food.
We cannot live without eating food. But if somebody’s purpose of life becomes eating, then if the purpose of living is eating, then after sometime they’ll stop living. They’ll eat so much, eat so much, they’ll not live.
So the pleasure of eating is a pleasure. You could say it is temporary, but it’s a pleasure. And there’s nothing wrong with that pleasure.
It’s only when we start obsessing with the temporary so much, we start making that the goal of our life. Wealth is a need in life. But money is something which we live with, not something which we live for.
Live with means it is a resource for living. Live for me, it becomes a purpose for living. So temporary pleasures, when they become the purpose of our life, when they become the purpose of our life, then they obstruct us from spiritual growth.
But we keep chasing those pleasures because the world glamorises those pleasures. The world is what advertises, come on, buy this, eat this, watch this, get this, you’ll enjoy. And on the other hand, very few times we are actually told about spiritual happiness.
And even if we know about it, there is intellectual knowledge, but there is transformational knowledge. For that, we need spiritual association. It is only when we associate with spiritually minded people that our knowledge transforms our desires.
Our desires are often not just linear, but also triangular. Linear desire means that, okay, I see something, I want that. Say a child might see a chocolate, I want to eat it.
So you see the object and get the desire. But triangular means we don’t just see the object, but we see the object and we see somebody else enjoying that object. Say a big company releases a new smartphone.
Now they may often get a celebrity endorsement. I use this phone, it’s a great phone. Now what happens? When we see that phone, we may or may not get some desire for it.
But when a celebrity is endorsing it, this person is using that phone, I want to try it out. So our desire is not just linear, but triangular. Seeing somebody doing that activity stimulates us to do that activity.
So for us, similarly, spirituality we know, okay, it’s good, it’s important, but maybe later. Because all around us, the people are mostly materialistic. So if we associate with spiritually minded people, then seeing them being spiritual, seeing them being peaceful, seeing them being joyful, seeing their lives being purposeful, that triggers spiritual desires within us.
So to transform that knowledge into action, we need association. We have another question. Does sattvic diet or lifestyle help in improving wellness? So does sattvic diet help in improving wellness? Definitely.
Krishna talks about the sattvic diet and sattvic lifestyle overall in the Bhagavad Gita, especially in chapter 14, 17 and 18. So basically sattvic diet is diet which is both आयू सत्व भलारोग्या सुखप्रीति वर्धनः तस्यास्तिग्दासिरारद्या आहारा सात्विक प्रिया In the 17th chapter, Krishna says that that happiness, that food, which is both nutritious and delicious, that comprises food in sattva-guna, sattvic aahara. So now sometimes, we eat food which may be delicious, but it actually has a malicious effect on our health.
It hurts us. And when our desires are very strong, then we keep eating those things again and again. And, there is, we hurt ourselves.
There is, in one of the Egyptian pyramids, the second biggest pyramid there. This is the first, swings in second. There is a saying written over there.
It says that you live on 25% of what you eat. And, on the remaining 75% lives your physician. The percentage itself might be an exaggeration.
But the principle is that if our eating is unregulated, that leads to various kinds of problems. So sattva-guna, sattvic aahara means that it is food that is a balance of both nutrition and taste. And that is definitely helpful for promoting wellness.
Thank you. Driving from your answer, can sattvic diet help in improving spiritual health? Okay. Yes, can sattvic diet help in improving spiritual health? Definitely, again.
It’s not just, when we as spiritualists take food, we understand that food is not something which we ourselves have created. We may labour to put bread or put food on our table, but actually it is nature which produces the food. Every morning when birds wake up and start chirping, searching for grains, the birds have to search to get the grains.
But the birds searching does not produce the grains. Birds searching is secondary. Nature’s providing the grains is primary.
Similarly for us, it is nature which provides the food. And we only procure it. So now nature, the Bhagavad Gita explains, is governed by the divine.
So when we take food, we acknowledge that this food is not just something which we have produced. This food is a gift of the divine. And before taking the food, we offer the food to the divine as an expression of our devotion.
And when there is this exchange of affection and appreciation through the food, then that food becomes spiritualised. That is what we call as prasad. Prasad means mercy coming in the form of food.
And that food, so sattvic food, if it is spiritualised by offering, then that can tremendously help us in our spiritual journey. Thanks a lot, Prabhuji. We have another question.
Hare Krishna, Prabhuji. My question is, how to detach from the materialistic world to see more on spiritual development? We live in a family context with materialistic things, relationships, etc. So while being in a family, how can we grow spiritually and how can we be detached? See the word detached sometimes has a negative connotation.
Detachment, sometimes people think if I become detached, I’ll become uncaring, I’ll become irresponsible. No. Detachment is not, it doesn’t mean becoming uncaring or unfeeling.
It simply means that we don’t let anything control our feelings. Dhritarashtra was attached to Duryodhana. And because of that attachment, he just went along with whatever Duryodhana wanted.
And Duryodhana acted viciously and Dhritarashtra consented to that. So in the Mahabharata, when Yudhishthira becomes a king, after that Narada Muni comes to meet him. And Narada Muni tells him that, O king, normally when we greet people, he asks, how are you? So Narada Muni asks the same question but in a more informed way.
He says, O king, are you pursuing Dharma, Artha and Kama in balance? He says, don’t pursue Dharma at the expense of Artha and Kama. Don’t pursue Artha at the expense of Dharma and Kama. And don’t pursue Kama at the expense of Dharma and Artha.
So Dharma refers to our religion, our spirituality. Artha refers to our profession, our financial side. Kama, we can say, broadly refers to our family.
So Krishna is saying, so the Mahabharata is telling us, pursue all these three in balance. So, if at the moment we think that I will be pursuing only Dharma and neglecting Artha and Kama, then that is a misunderstanding. You have to pursue all three.
But some people may become workaholics where they pursue Artha so much that they neglect their family, they neglect their spirituality and they just become super achievers in their profession but they become utter failures in their life. The families are breaking apart, the children have gone on the wrong track and they are unhappy. So, success in one area of life cannot compensate for failure in another area.
Professional success can’t compensate for family failure. So similarly, family success can’t compensate for spiritual failure. So all these three are separate tracks and we need to progress in all these three tracks in a harmonious way.
And if we see that Krishna as God is not just limited to Dharma, it’s not that we worship Krishna only when we go to the temple. Krishna causes an inclusive vision of God. Krishna says, By your work, worship the divine.
What that means is that we can say, okay, I am in this particular family, these family members, I am serving them but these are not just my family members. They are interested by God to me. They are God’s parts.
This son, this daughter is not my son or daughter alone. This is God’s son, God’s daughter. So let me, I can serve God by taking care of them also.
We have certain talents, certain abilities which we use in our profession. Those talents are gifts given by God to us. Arjuna had archery skill and he excelled in that skill and he used it in Krishna’s service.
So, God is not just limited to Dharma. God, if we have a proper attitude of service and contribution then Artha and Kama, all of them can be permeated with the Bhava Bhakti. So Bhakti integrates Dharma, Artha and Kama in a spiritual trajectory for our life.
Thanks a lot. We have a question. Why to be a vegetarian is required to be spiritual? Why killing of animals or directly, indirectly contributing that is spiritual development? Why it is important? So, why do we need to be vegetarian for spiritual growth or for happy living? I have, as was mentioned in the introduction, I have a website, The Spiritual Scientist where I have elaborately an article on this topic.
So, I talk about it that by your eating, you can help the world. So, HELP is an acronym, H-E-L-P. H is health.
Many studies have shown that for better health, vegetarian diet is much, much better. Especially if somebody has heart problems, cardiac issues. Then, the first recommendation is stop eating meat.
And the human body is anatomically structured in such a way that it can’t digest meat as well as it can digest vegetarian food. And proteins also we can get abundantly from vegetarian food also. So, health we can significantly improve by eating vegetarian food.
E is environment. One of the biggest causes of environmental degradation today is animal, is factory farming, animal factories. Wherever animals are generated like units in a factory, there so much water is used for feeding the animals, for removing their excreta.
And, generally, the amount of resources, environmental resources, now when we talk about meat eating, it is not that animals grow naturally and somebody goes and hunts them. The factory farms, where thousands and thousands of animals are artificially cultivated. And, they emit gases which cause pollution.
They emit excreta which causes pollution. And, on top of that, just to nourish them, the environment gets polluted. And, moreover, we also don’t get enough nutrition.
The Food and Agriculture Association has said that, organisation has said that, actually, if the whole world turns vegetarian, with the existing agricultural land that we have, we can feed 10 times the existing population of the world. How is that? Because most of the land today, land which can be used for irrigation, that is used not to grow grains for human beings. It is used to grow fodder for livestock, for animals.
And then, that fodder, when it is eaten, say, an animal may eat this much grain and by that this much fat, this much flesh may come for a human being to eat. But, if that much grains were eaten by human beings, then so many human beings could be fed. So, on an average, depending on the particular animal that is fed, but on an average, the amount of land that is required to feed one non-vegetarian person, in that much land, actually, 7 to 14 vegetarian people can be fed.
So, environmental resources can be much, much better used. And, of course, L is livestock. The animals themselves are subjected to inhumane cruelty.
The way the animals are treated, it is horrible. Most of us, there is a social critic who said that if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everybody would become vegetarian. We don’t have to cause brutal suffering to others just to get some tasty food.
And, actually, even that taste is not primarily from the meat. It is from the spices that we put on the meat. So, actually, and last is poverty.
Why poverty? Because the result, as I said, hunger, what I talked about earlier, because so much land is used to cultivate livestock. So, people are not, people don’t get enough food to eat. They stay hungry, they stay poor.
And, if we started, instead of using our resources to run the meat industry, if that same resources were used for agriculture for human beings, so much more employment would be generated and so much more poverty could be mitigated. From a spiritual perspective, we want to appreciate life wherever it is. So, the Bhagavad Gita explains that all living beings are a part of the same cosmic family.
sarva-yonishu kaunteya murutaya sambhavantiya taasam brahma madhyo niraham bhija pradapita God is the father of all living beings. So, even the animals, they are also our brothers and sisters in the one divine family. And, just because they are a little weaker than us, in some way, that doesn’t give us the right to kill them for our food.
So, we can’t love God if we lust as our prey, the creatures of God. So, the more we give up vegetarian food, the more, not only will we become healthier, but also, our consciousness will evolve more spiritually. Thank you.
We are running out of time, but I cannot resist myself asking one question. Yeah, please. Having such a great personality in front of me.
Can we benefit from your wisdom of experience? Apart from bhakti-yoga, how can we align our body, mind and soul? Like, there is yajna-yoga and bhakti-yoga and… Okay, yeah. So, apart from bhakti-yoga, are there other yogas also? Can they also help us to live more harmoniously? Yes, definitely. There are different parts of yoga and all of them can help us to become elevated.
Broadly speaking, we can say there is karma-yoga, there is jnana-yoga, there is ashtanga-yoga, there is bhakti-yoga. So, karma-yoga is often called the yoga of action. Jnana-yoga is the yoga of intellectual reflection.
Ashtanga-yoga is the yoga of meditation. What most people call us today yoga, that is yoga asanas. It’s not just yoga.
It is yoga asanas and that is one limb of ashtanga-yoga. And there is bhakti-yoga. So, the word yoga essentially means connection.
Yuj. Yoke. When two things are yoked together, they are linked together.
It’s the same root, yoke, yoj, means connect. So, yoga is meant to connect us with spiritual reality. We ourselves are spiritual beings and to connect us with spiritual reality, that is the process of yoga.
Now, all these yogas are meant to direct our consciousness towards higher spiritual reality. And all of them can help us. The distinctiveness of the bhakti-yoga is that in bhakti-yoga, we understand that the spiritual reality is not just some object which we try to attain.
It’s not just a passive object of meditation, but rather the spiritual reality is a loving person for reciprocation. And that person can bestow grace, can bestow mercy upon us. And by that mercy, we can rise upwards much better.
So, if somebody has fallen in a well and there is a rope, now we can have that rope and hold on to that rope, climb up and come out of that rope. Without that rope, we will not be able to come out at all. So, having that rope is very helpful.
And the different parts of yoga are like ropes. So, karma-yoga is the rope which we hold on through our physical actions and physical energy. Dhyan-yoga is the rope that we hold on to by our intellect, by our analysis, intellectual analysis.
This is temporary, this is eternal. I am going to focus on this, not on this. Ashtang-yoga is the yoga where we do physical austerities and detach ourselves from the world and turn inwards.
Where by meditation, we try to hold on to that rope and pull ourselves out. Now, Bhakti-yoga is not, sometimes people think Bhakti-yoga is simply a sentiment. But Bhakti-yoga is not just sentiment.
Arjuna fought the Kurukshetra war as a Bhakti-yogi. So, Bhakti-yoga is a whole life which is directed by divine emotion. Bhakti-yoga is not just Bhakti or divine emotion.
It is divine emotion that directs all aspects of our life. So, it will include our body, it will include our intelligence, it will include our physical austerity. Everything is included.
So, that is also like a rope. But the speciality of Bhakti-yoga is, not only is it inclusive, but also it is reciprocal. So, we have that rope, but we also have a person outside.
All that we have to do is hold on to the rope and we will be pulled out. So, all the yogas can help us to advance, but Bhakti-yoga gives us access to a higher power with whom we can connect through the power of our emotions. All other yogas require us to give up our emotions, become detached, become detached, become detached.
Bhakti-yoga is not so much about becoming detached as about becoming attached to Krishna. And by that power of divine emotion, when we connect with Krishna, then he by his power lifts us out. So, Bhakti-yoga channels our emotional energy and also gives us access to divine grace.
That’s why Bhakti-yoga is recommended by the Bhagavad Gita. But every yoga can help us advance. Bhakti-yoga helps us to advance in the most expeditious way.
Thank you. Thanks for the member of public who asked the question. I take this opportunity.
Can I request Dr. Sadhna Bose, who is the coordinator of this seminar, to come forward and…